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What Happens when Legit Services are Seen as Spam?

Posted by Cliff on from the overzealous-blocking dept.

AssFace asks: "I run a blog that is dedicated to just things relating to spam (for the most part, the discussion is of how to stop it). I received an e-mail from a reader of the blog today that described the situation he was in. His words: 'I have a small recruiting business, with about 600 paying clients who are looking for jobs in education. About twice a month, I send an update message to all of them via e-mail. I also send them personal messages as needed. Unfortunately, Hotmail (which a great many of my clients use) seems to think that I am a spammer. With Hotmail's spam blocker set on "Medium," my e-mails go to the recipient's Spam folder. AOL and Yahoo may be blocking my messages as well, though I'm not yet certain.' I wrote my own thoughts on it and then offered it up to comments from the users of the site. My responses to his e-mail apparently weren't anything that could help his particular situation. So, regardless of the validity of this particular person's plea, what is a small business service to do if they are blocked by the major ISPs?"

9 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Contact the ISPs. by GregChant · · Score: 4, Informative

    We have that problem here from time to time, and the way we solve it is by actually calling up or e-mailing the ISP explaining the situation. Usually they're helpful and will give you directions on how to prevent further blacklisting.

  2. Rule: No AOL or Hotmail. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1, Informative

    Make it a rule that you will not take anyone as a client unless they have an email address with someone other company than Hotmail or AOL. Recommend an email company, and suggest they have an email address just for your messages.

  3. Find out why by Finni · · Score: 4, Informative
    This is probably pretty easy. He needs to get the mail headers from his clients that are affected by this. Each provider probably adds X-headers that add up to a score, a spam determinant. Some providers may choose to not put a detailed score listing in, oh well. I know that the system we use is based on SpamAssassin, and every rule has a weight. Things like entries in DNS-RBL add to the score, or no reverse-DNS, Bayesian scoring, keywords, etc.

    Find out why, and fix each thing that comes up. Maybe his mailserver has no reverse DNS, fix that. Maybe his ISP or his IP is on a blacklist, get it fixed or take his business elsewhere. Maybe subscribe to a service that handles email marketing responsibly, like (gasp) Microsoft's bCentral, they will make sure that they don't get blacklisted.

  4. Blacklist the blacklisters by theCoder · · Score: 1, Informative

    Let me start with a rant:
    I tell you, the radical anti-spammers really are becoming more of a problem than the actual spammers! Spammers are evil: they make email hard to use and take up Internet resources. Radical anti-spammers are worse: they actively try to make email not work. They are the primary reason I have to run my own mail server. I don't want to lose email because some idiot admin thinks some email I got is spam and deletes it. Or worse, just blacklists whole swaths of IP space. Unfortunately, since I chose to run my own mailsever, I've now earned the ire of the same anti-spammers, because I'm not using a corporate controlled mail server. Spam is a problem, but it's not worth destroying email over!

    Now that that's out of the way, to the poster, the only thing I can say is to inform your clients that you cannot accept email addresses at these disreputable places (AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail) because they often drop or misdirect valid email. Or, you can accept the addresses, but warn them (in big, red letters) that email sent to those addresses may not get through. Presumably, if they are paying for this service, they do want the mail, so it's up to them to give you a working address. Maybe then, they will lean on their ISP to actually fix the problem.

    --
    "Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
  5. Report it... by iamchris · · Score: 5, Informative

    My company's emais were being dumped into the spam folder on Yahoo! Getting our email out of the Bulkmail folder was a lengthy process that took several attempts to start. I had to submit sample copies of our standard emails, and a copy of our privacy policy, and a rather lengthy survey. They reviewed the information, put us on probation, and reviewed the findings at the end of a month. My company is legit. I had no doubt that they would back our company off the blacklist. Incidently, the only way I found the proper channel to report the problem was to contact corporate HQ. Some deep digging was done and I finally ended up with an email address to report to: mail-abuse-bulk@yahoo-inc.com

  6. Habeas by wintahmoot · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sounds like the Habeas Sender Warranted Email Solution would help here.

    Basically you just have to include a special, copyrighted Haiku in your e-mail, and most spam filters will let your mail through. The Haiku warrants that your e-mail is not spam, because you have to license the usage of the Haiku, and the terms prevent from using it in spam mail.

    I'm not sure if Hotmail respects the Habeas Haiku, but it might be worth a try.

    --
    Martin May
    1. Re:Habeas by ratboy666 · · Score: 1, Informative

      TykeClone

      Yes - spammers putting random words in is an effort to avoid being automatically judged to be spam based on content. The Habeas poetry is a pre-set sequence that can bypass the same filter (if the filter is aware of it). The idea is that it is *illegal* for the spammer to put that particular piece of poetry into an email.

      Of course, the idea is slightly daft, because I get "spams" that offer illegal products (in my jurisdiction). *If* the spammer could be found, they could be shut down -- but they typically don't wait around that long (eg. Nigerian scam, insurance sales, and other).

      Why shouldn't a Nigerian scammer put the poetry in? If *actually* caught and charged, I am sure that the additional offense will be simply plead out anyway...

      Ratboy.

      --
      Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
    2. Re:Habeas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Basically you just have to include a special, copyrighted Haiku in your e-mail, and most spam filters will let your mail through. The Haiku warrants that your e-mail is not spam, because you have to license the usage of the Haiku, and the terms prevent from using it in spam mail.

      I have never received real email that contained the Habeas Haiku. On the other hand, I have received hundreds of spam messages that contained the haiku. I learned of Habeas when I was trying to figure out why an obvious spam message got past spamassassin. The haiku is far more indicative of spam than ham. It is trivial to forge, and hard to verify.

      Habeas offers a whitelist DNS service so you can check if a haiku user paid for the service - of course, they charge for it. Fuck that.

      BondedSender.com is a much better program from the receipient's point of view. The cost is paid by the sender, and it is easy (and free) to verify.

  7. Do you have any experience with Powweb? by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 2, Informative

    Do you have any experience with Powweb?

    About two years ago, I reviewed 550 web hosting providers and came to the conclusion that PowWeb was the best for low- and medium-traffic sites. I've had to explain to customers that, even though Powweb is inexpensive, it is better than all the $30/month web hosting providers I've seen.